in the city that we love
by flowermasters
Summary: Lydia accidentally gains a sidekick. Stydia vigilante AU.


A/N: I'm not entirely sure where this came from, but after a couple tries it finally took off, so here it is.

Warnings for: Stiles/Lydia, violence, some language, kidnapping, assassination attempts, mostly human AU, superhero/vigilante AU, everyone lives AU, Peter Hale's existence, one non-consensual medical procedure (non-explicit.)

Title comes from "Pompeii" by Bastille.

* * *

><p>To the novice vigilante, adjusting to the skintight costume might seem impossible. However, any hero worth their stuff will tell you - the mask is the worst part of the outfit. Your face never stops <em>itching<em>.

Really, it's a testament to how easy this fight is that Lydia even has time to ponder such things. She sends one assailant flying with a hard kick to the sternum - he lands in a heap on the other side of the alley, too dazed to get back up. Two of his comrades are lying on the ground in various states of injury or unconsciousness, and another - probably the smartest of the group - has already fled. That leaves just one more.

He's the one with the knife, and Lydia doesn't relish the thought of getting stabbed by some low-level henchman in a back alley. She reaches for the pouch at her belt and withdraws a Banshee Bomb - so unfortunately dubbed by the _Beacon Hills Bulletin_ - presses the button, and says, with the acidic tone of the girl she'd once been, "Sorry, sweetheart."

He ducks reflexively when she tosses it towards him, but the best part about her devices is that it doesn't matter if the target is actually hit. The Banshee Bomb, a deceptively small metal cylinder, bounces off the brick wall of the nearest building and releases a piercing scream, so loud and unearthly that the man drops to his knees, clutching his ears. The burst of sound is mercifully short - for him, obviously - but he is so incapacitated by it that handcuffing him to the leg of a nearby dumpster is a piece of cake.

Once he's secured, she leans over him and says loudly, "Tell Peter he's going to have to try a little harder next time."

The goon just whimpers in response, and Lydia hurries back down the alley instead of towards the street - the Banshee Bomb will have alerted everyone nearby to her presence, so a quick and discreet exit is necessary. She pauses only to adjust her shiny black domino mask, which has been rubbing up and down on her cheeks all night, no doubt leaving an unsightly red rash behind. It's a good thing she's talented with makeup, Lydia muses, as she resists the urge to irritate the skin even more by scratching it.

Lydia's so preoccupied that she almost doesn't see another man lurking near the other end of the alley beside a few metal trash cans. When she does notice him, she assumes almost immediately that he's another one of Peter's henchmen - she reaches for her utility belt, prepared to grab another Banshee Bomb. However, he shocks her into stillness by yelping, "Wait, wait! I'm not a bad guy. _So_ not a bad guy. In fact, I'm a fan of yours."

Lydia stares at him for a moment, hand still at her waist. "What's with the ski mask, then?" she says finally.

"Oh, this?" the boy says - and he _is_ a boy, not a man, she can tell by the excited and jerky movements. "I guess you could say I'm also a vigilante. More of a wannabe, though -,"

Lydia wants to tell him off - you can't just _be_ a vigilante for the hell of it, how ridiculous of an idea is that - but then she hears the sound of sirens in the distance. "Right," she says dryly. "Well, if you've got any sense at all, you'll get the hell out of here before the cops show up."

"Oh," he says, startled. "Okay."

She leaves him behind without a second thought.

Within the week, however, he catches up to her. Well, to be accurate, he nearly hits her with his car.

She's being chased by one of Peter Hale's many hired guns - this one is positively _gargantuan_, and actually had the forethought to bring earplugs. Without thinking, she runs into what, at the time, looks like an empty street. Lydia doesn't see the blue Jeep hurtling up the road until it's too late. She screams - an entirely human noise this time - and flings herself out of its path just as the jeep swerves and runs over the foot of Peter's thug. The man yells in pain and falls to his knees as the jeep screeches to a halt nearby, and it gives Lydia enough time to whirl around, kick the goon upside the head, and knock him unconscious.

Lydia hears a car door open as she pauses to steady her breathing. "Are you okay? Is that guy - is he - ?" the driver shouts, sounding panicked.

Lydia recognizes the voice - of course she does, she's got a fabulous memory. She sighs. "He's just knocked out," Lydia says. "Don't worry about him. He's been trying to kill me for the past three blocks."

There's a pause. "Alright then," replies the boy, and Lydia finally looks over at him. He's standing next to his car, and is in the process of tugging on his mask. Lydia rolls her eyes.

"Don't bother with that," she says tiredly. "Anyway, thanks for the help." Without further ado, she turns and walks off. Once she gets a block or two away, she'll call the cops and have them come pick this guy up. Hopefully he'll still be out cold by the time they get here.

"Wait!" the boy says, and she hears the repetitive thud of his sneakers on the asphalt as he follows her. "Wait. I just want to say -,"

Lydia whirls on him, her temper abruptly reaching its breaking point. It has _not_ been a good night - the arrival of Peter's henchman had caused her to lose track of the serial mugger she's been after for weeks. She just knows, in the very pit of her soul, that _someone_ - either the mugger or one of his victims - is going to die if she doesn't catch him first. Naturally, Lydia is in a pretty foul mood. "I don't _care_ what you have to say," she snaps. "Do you completely lack a self-preservation instinct?"

"Self-preservation instinct?" the boy repeats blankly. "No, I've got one of those. But please, uh, Banshee, listen -,"

"No," she says firmly, and he falls silent. "Now get in your car and go home, unless you want that guy to wake up and snap you in half like a twig."

For the second time, Lydia walks off without looking back. He's smart enough not to follow her.

After that, Lydia has to take a brief vacation from her duties as the Banshee. She twists her ankle chasing after a thief, and spends the next few days at home, designing a more cost-effective version of the Banshee Bombs while her ankle heals up. But on the third night, when she's fallen asleep at her desk, she has a vision.

_"Help! Somebody help!" A stranger, frantic._

_ The body on the pavement - already pale and cool to the touch. A ski mask is still clutched in a stiff hand. _

Lydia snaps awake with a scream.

Her visions are one of the main ways Lydia finds her targets - she hasn't had one in a few weeks, but whenever she does, she always snaps into action. She's only half-aware of what's going on as she mechanically wraps her ankle, then slips out of her clothes and into her gear. She pulls her hair up into a high chignon and puts on her mask, and then she's good to go.

Lydia slowly comes back to awareness as she's pounding the pavements in darkness and light rain. Her brain doesn't know where she's going, but her body does. She no longer questions the instinct, and she picks up the pace when something, a whisper in the back of her mind, warns her -_ you're going to be too late_.

She finds him, her serial mugger, slipping out of a darkened apartment building. He takes one look at her, recognizes her, and starts sprinting in the opposite direction. Lydia, with the barest hint of a triumphant smile, follows.

Once, she never would have been able to keep up with him. Now, she's right behind him - until he takes a sudden, sharp turn. In her attempt to follow him, Lydia skids on the slick pavement, nearly losing her balance. Her ankle gives a twinge, but she ignores it, because he's already tearing off down the side street.

He makes it to the next block before she does, and when she rounds the corner, she watches as he slams into someone - someone wearing a black ski mask.

"Shit," Lydia says, but it's too late - she hears the boy's cry of pain, sees him stumble and fall to the pavement. There's a flash of silver in the mugger's hand that Lydia hadn't noticed before.

The mugger takes off running again, giving one last panicked look backwards. The logical part of Lydia's brain says _go, you can still catch him_, but she falls to her knees next to the boy anyways.

A rosy stain is blooming on his damp gray t-shirt. He's making soft noises of panic, clutching at the fabric with trembling hands. Lydia, despite herself, feels a rush of sympathy. "Let go of your shirt," she says quietly, bending over him.

His eyes meet hers. She's never been close enough to him before to make note of their color - a warm, deep brown. "Am I dying? Because - because I really don't want to die," he babbles, as he obediently lets go of the fabric.

Lydia tugs up his shirt and studies the wound briefly. He needs stitches, but if he gets treatment soon, he'll live. He won't bleed out on the pavement like she'd dreamed he would. "You're not dying," she says, pulling his shirt back down. "Put pressure on that, please."

He does, even though she knows it must hurt like hell to touch. "I've got to call 911 -," she begins, but he doesn't let her finish.

"No, no, don't," he blurts, voice shaking. "My dad - he'll kill me himself if he finds out -,"

"Oh, God, of course," Lydia mutters under her breath. "Well, where's your car?"

The boy gives a feeble jerk of his head, and Lydia looks up. His shiny blue death trap is parked a little ways down the block. "Alright, come on," she says, standing up straight and grabbing him under the arms. She isn't strong enough to carry him, so she basically has to drag him all the way to his jeep. It isn't enjoyable for either of them, to say the least.

By the time she manages to half-guide, half-heave him into the passenger seat, he's weak and barely conscious. Despite everything, he gives her a feeble smile, visible through the mouth hole of his ski mask. "You know, we've really got to stop meeting like this," the boy says, right before passing out.

Lydia resists the urge to roll her eyes, but only just.

Getting him back to her apartment is no problem. The problem lies in stitching up his wound. It's not that Lydia isn't capable of doing it, it's just - well, gross. But she manages to get him stitched up with minimal gagging, and then she slathers some numbing cream on the wound and puts gauze on it. He only stirs once, but as soon as he glimpses the needle in her hand, he promptly faints again. She might have expected him to be the squeamish type.

She leaves him lying on her small couch and goes over to her desk, where her police scanner and her blueprints are. There's no point going after the armed thief again tonight - he could be anywhere in the city by now. Besides, she can't exactly leave mystery boy alone in her apartment. Still, the police chatter makes for good background noise, so Lydia flicks on the scanner.

Thirty minutes later, the boy still hasn't stirred - judging by his deep, heavy breathing, he's asleep. Figures. If he's not awake within the next fifteen minutes, Lydia decides, she'll wake him up and tell him to get lost -

It's then that the message comes over the scanner. The suspect in a string of armed robberies - whose name means nothing to Lydia but whose description matches that of the thief's - has been caught and taken in for questioning.

"Yes!" Lydia blurts, unable to help herself.

"Huh?" mystery boy says, jerking awake on her couch.

Lydia fumbles around on her desk for her mask, which she'd taken off while stitching him up, but it's nowhere to be found. "Damn," she says under her breath.

"Looking for this?" the boy says drowsily, and Lydia turns to see him holding up her mask. She'd left it on the couch's arm rest, right next to his head.

"Give me that," Lydia snaps, getting up and snatching it from him.

"Sorry," he says. He reaches up and pushes his ski mask off, letting it fall to the floor next to the couch. "Here. Now we're even."

"I don't really care about seeing your face," Lydia says, ignoring the fact that he's cuter than she'd expected. "I just saw your insides."

"It was good for me, too," the boy says, without missing a beat. To her credit, Lydia doesn't laugh, although it's a near thing.

There's a beat of silence, and then the boy asks, "So what was all the cheering about?"

Lydia pulls a face. "I wasn't _cheering_."

"Shouting 'yes' is generally considered cheering. But okay, fine. You weren't cheering."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're annoying?"

"Many, many times."

The boy shifts into a more comfortable position, and winces. Reminded again of the ordeal he's been through, Lydia says, "For the record, the guy who stabbed you has been taken in for questioning. They'll probably arrest him."

"Good," the boy says. "Because this hurts like hell."

"I can give you a painkiller, if you want," Lydia offers. "As long as you can handle it."

"The only thing I can't handle is a knife wound," the boy says, and Lydia rolls her eyes before getting up to fetch him some medicine. She's not entirely sure why she's even entertaining this right now. The smartest thing to do would be to get him out of her apartment as soon as possible ... but Lydia doesn't really have it in her to throw out a guy with a fresh stab wound before he can even get his wits about him.

"Here," she says, handing him a pill and a small bottle of water from her fridge. He's still going to be in some pain, but if she gives him anything stronger, he'll probably knock out on her couch again and refuse to budge.

He swallows the painkiller and then drains the bottle of water in one go. "Thanks," he says. "Which reminds me. I never got the chance to tell you -,"

"You don't have to thank me," Lydia says automatically.

"No, I do," the boy says. "Not just for saving me. You saved my dad's life, too."

Lydia blinks at him, befuddled, and he continues, "My dad is Sheriff Stilinski. Three months ago, he crashed his squad car during a chase and you - you pulled him out. He could have died. Probably would have. You kept me from being an orphan."

Lydia remembers the crash, of course - the Sheriff had been unconscious, his car mangled and burning. Lydia still has a faint pink scar on the side of her hand from brushing the hot metal of his squad car. She'd even waited with him on the side of the road for the ambulance to arrive.

"Is that why you've been following me all over town?" she asks wryly. "To thank me for saving your dad?"

"Yeah," the boy admits. "You're a hero. And I think heroes deserve thanks."

He sounds so genuine that it actually warms Lydia. She looks away before he can see that she's trying not to smile. "I'm just doing my job."

"But you're not," he blurts. "This isn't your job. You don't get paid. You just save people. And that's why - that's why I want to be a vigilante, too. I want to help you."

Lydia stares at him for a minute, and then says slowly, "Look, honey -,"

"It's Stiles," he says helpfully. "My name is Stiles."

"Stiles Stilinski?" Lydia says dryly.

"It's a nickname."

"Thank God for that," Lydia says. "Anyway, Stiles, I appreciate it, but I'm not really taking applications for sidekicks right now."

"Well, it wouldn't have to be like a _sidekick_ thing," Stiles concedes. "But I _can_ help you. I've been taking self-defense classes, and I have a car, which you seem to lack -,"

"You can't just _be_ a vigilante!" Lydia interjects. "Do you think I just decided to do this for fun?"

"Well, no," Stiles says, brow furrowed. "Speaking of which, why did you decide to do this? Just curious."

Lydia fights back thoughts of cold, sterile lab equipment and Peter Hale's insidious laughter in her ear. "I have my reasons," she says stiffly. "And gratitude isn't one of them."

Stiles opens his mouth to respond, but he's cut off by a short buzzing sound. He reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out his cell phone. From her position, Lydia can see that the blurb on the screen reads _NEW TEXT MESSAGE - DAD_.

"Are you in trouble?" she asks, watching his face as he opens the message and reads it.

"Not yet," Stiles says heavily. "It says, 'I know you're not home. You'd better be at Scott's and you'd better get home now.'"

"How are you going to explain the stab wound?" Lydia asks. A little voice in the back of her mind asks _why do you care_, but she ignores it.

"I'm not," Stiles says, and he starts to shrug but seems to think better of it. "I'm just going to hope he doesn't notice."

Lydia decides not to comment on that. "Can you get to your car?" she asks. It's nearly dawn - her neighbors will be stirring, so if she has to walk him to his car, she's going to have to change clothes. She also contemplates putting a bag over his head and driving him a few blocks away so that he won't know where she lives, but that's even more conspicuous than the skintight jumpsuit.

"Yeah, of course," Stiles says, with a little more bravado than is strictly necessary.

He manages to limp to the front door of her tiny apartment unassisted, so Lydia relaxes. That is, of course, until he turns around slowly at the door and says, "Will you at least tell me your name?"

Lydia just stares at him, incredulous, but he continues, "Not your whole name. Just your first name. Just the first letter!"

She doesn't say anything, so he keeps right on babbling. "Okay, I'll guess, and you just tell me if I'm close. Uh, Kate. Elizabeth. Lisa. Delilah."

"It's Lydia," she finally says, for the express purpose of shutting him up. "Tell anybody my name, or where I live, and I'll damage every extremity you have."

"Right," Stiles says, grinning in a way reminiscent of the Cheshire cat. "But, uh - thanks again, Lydia."

"Get out," she says, and she hides her smile until he shuts the door behind him.

The threat of getting very valuable parts of his body lopped off doesn't seem to stop Stiles, because he shows up at her house two days later. _Before nightfall,_ at that.

"What the _hell_ are you doing here?" Lydia hisses, firmly blocking the doorway and glaring at him. She's no longer so dramatically short compared to him, thanks to her wedge booties.

His gaze drifts to the name tag below her left collarbone. She hasn't had a chance to take it off. "You work at Macy's?" he asks curiously.

"It's retail, I know," she says grimly, before grabbing his arm and tugging him inside. She doesn't know Stiles well, but she can tell he's the type to blurt out humongous secrets in semi-public places, such as the hallways of apartment buildings. "Seriously, what do you want?"

"My mask," he says. "I left it here."

"Yeah, and I threw it away," Lydia says, wrinkling her nose. "I'd ask if it was worth something, but it still had a price tag on the inside."

Stiles gives her an offended stare. "It was a last resort, okay -,"

"Why do you even need it?" Lydia asks, crossing her arms over her chest and refusing to consider the idea that this is none of her business. "You're _not_ a vigilante."

"I'm working on it," Stiles replies, and Lydia gives a long-suffering sigh.

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but your mask is in a dumpster somewhere far, far away by now."

"Oh, great," Stiles says, sounding miffed. "Alright, well, I guess I'll -,"

The rest of his sentence is drowned out by the crackle of flames.

_Someone is choking. Gasping._

_ Flames are licking the walls. Flames are licking her skin._

Lydia's shocks herself out of the vision by screaming. She's dimly aware of warm hands on her upper arms, gently shaking her.

"Lydia? Are you okay?" Stiles's voice is an echo, so far away that she can barely hear it. She doesn't answer him, just frees herself from his grasp and goes to put on her suit. She doesn't know if he follows or not.

As usual, she comes back to reality in pieces. The first thing she's truly aware of is standing in the lobby of an apartment building - not her own. It's quickly filling with smoke, and mostly empty. Lydia doesn't waste any time heading for the stairs. She knows why she's been called here.

"How cliche," she says to nobody in particular, before sucking in one last breath of relatively clean air and pressing on.

She does a quick sweep of the second floor, but everyone seems to have evacuated already. The smoke in the air gets thicker as she heads up to the third floor. "Hello?" she shouts, trying not to cough. Her eyes are stinging and watering. "Is anyone here?"

"Surprise," a deep voice says, right before something large and heavy slams into her back. Lydia cries out in pain and falls to the floor, but manages to roll over onto her back in time to recognize her assailant. Peter's last assassin - she recognizes him by his sheer size alone. His bulk is made even more terrifying by the fact that he's wearing a heavy-duty black oxygen mask.

He's on top of her before she has time to roll away, wrapping meaty hands around her neck. She struggles wildly, but he's just too _big_. The edges of Lydia's vision are turning grayish black, and she can't breathe - everything is so dark, and hot -

Someone gives a wild cry, and the pressure on Lydia's neck loosens. Her assailant goes limp on top of her, and she's too weak to wriggle away. A moment later, someone grabs her under the elbows and tugs her out from under him. "Please don't be dead," Stiles says in her ear.

Lydia coughs in response, and he says, "Oh, thank God. Ouch. _Fuck. _This hurts. Okay, I've got to drag you ..."

The air becomes too oppressive to breathe, and Lydia loses consciousness.

When she wakes up, the air is blessedly clean, although everything still tastes like smoke and ash. She opens her eyes and finds herself lying on her own couch, in her own apartment. Nearby, someone is rummaging around in her cabinets.

A moment later, Stiles comes into view holding a box of crackers. "You're awake," he says, sounding relieved. "Triscuit?"

"Water," Lydia croaks.

"Oh," he says. "Sure."

He fetches her a bottle of water, and she drinks from it slowly while she gathers her wits. She's still in her suit, although her mask is gone. The ends of her hair are singed and need to be trimmed. She feels _awful_.

Stiles, she notes, is covered in soot and moving very gingerly. "What were you doing?" she asks, her voice a raspy whisper. "In that building, I mean."

"Well, I followed you, obviously," he says. "And then I knocked out that guy who was trying to choke you to death."

"Really," she says. "What'd you knock him out with?"

"Baseball bat," he says. "It's ruined now, obviously. That guy has a skull made of steel."

_Let's hope_, Lydia doesn't say, _or else you might have just killed somebody. _"Tell me everything that happened after you came here earlier."

"Well, I don't really know what happened," Stiles says, sitting down carefully in her desk chair and running a grimy hand through his hair. "You just - went totally still. Then you started screaming. It was freaky. Like, _really_ freaky."

When Lydia doesn't comment, he continues, "And then you left the room and you came back suited up. You wouldn't answer me when I spoke to you - it was like you couldn't even hear me. You just left. So I followed you, but I got held up - some guys tried to stop me from going into the building. I finally just kicked one of them in the shin and took off. That's why I wasn't with you when you - when that guy tried to kill you."

_You saved my life_, Lydia almost says. She holds her tongue instead.

Stiles's expression is full of mingled concern and curiosity. "Lydia, what the hell was that earlier? Did your Spidey-sense tingle or something? Did you see an invisible Bat-signal?"

Lydia coughs on a laugh. "No," she says, sobering. "I predicted my own death."

Stiles gapes at her. "Huh?"

"I predicted my own death," she repeats, her voice growing distant as she mulls that thought over. "I didn't know I could do that."

He's just staring at her, absolutely stunned. Lydia has never told anyone this information before. She's never even considered it. Who would believe her? Who would possibly share the burden of this secret with her?

The words _I would _might as well be stamped on Stiles's forehead.

"I really am a banshee," she says, finally. "It's not just some stupid nickname that the media gave me. When I scream - it means someone's going to die."

"Banshees aren't real," Stiles says, sounding less like he believes it and more like he doesn't know what else to say.

"I wear a mask and a catsuit on every night _except_ Halloween and you're telling me banshees aren't real?" Lydia asks flatly.

"Touche," Stiles says. "But - how? Are you a mutant, or are you Spiderman?"

He never seems to run out of superhero references. "Both," Lydia says. "I think."

Stiles studies her for a moment. "Can you start from the beginning?" he asks.

Lydia sighs, and the sigh turns into a ragged cough. "If you insist. Well, I'd just graduated when -," she begins.

"From what? High school?" Stiles interjects.

Lydia blinks at him. "How old do you think I am?"

Stiles looks vaguely worried, like one wrong word might cost him an arm or a leg. "I don't know? You're ... mysterious."

"I'm eighteen," she says flatly.

"No way, literally _no_ way, you are not -,"

Lydia stares at him until he falls silent, and then she continues. "I graduated when I was seventeen - I was early because of the whole certified genius thing," she elaborates, ignoring Stiles's gobsmacked expression. "I was going to UCLA in the fall. And I was interning at Hale Industries over the summer - in the research department. Biochemistry was my thing." Using the past tense stings a bit, but Lydia tries not to let it show.

Stiles opens his mouth to make a comment, but seems to think better of it. Lydia is glad for that; if she's going to get all of this out, it's got to be in one go. "I guess you could say I drew attention to myself," she says, her voice falling to a whisper for reasons she doesn't care to dissect. "Peter Hale took an interest in my work."

"Peter Hale?" Stiles repeats. "_The _Peter Hale?"

Lydia nods. Yes, _the_ Peter Hale - millionaire, jack of all trades, perpetrator of God only knows how many crimes. The one and only Peter Hale - and thank God for that, if he's listening. "He wanted me to work on a drug they were producing. Said it would enhance all things physical and mental."

"Well, did it?"

"Yes," Lydia says, and she resists the urge to reach for her throat, convinces herself that she can't feel the puncture wound or Peter's touch on her neck anymore.

"So you took it," Stiles extrapolates. "And it turned you into a banshee."

"No," Lydia says, taking another swig of water to ease the ache in her throat. "Peter said that must have always been in me. The serum was just the catalyst. I don't know how to explain it - I don't even understand it myself."

Peter had been so surprised, Lydia recalls. He'd pinned her to a lab table as she'd writhed and jerked, screaming so loudly she'd thought the world might end.

"So then what?" Stiles prompts.

"Everything changed," Lydia says simply. "I started having visions. What you saw earlier - that was a vision. I see things about people right before they die. I saw something about you two nights ago."

Stiles blanches. "So I was supposed to die?"

"Supposed to," Lydia agrees.

Though he might be strange and annoying at times, Stiles is remarkably quick on the uptake. "Is that why you do this whole vigilante thing?" he asks. "Because you can save people who are going to die?"

Lydia nods. She doesn't trust herself to speak, because if she does, she might tell him something she's never even allowed herself to consider fully - that she's afraid if she doesn't do something with this power of hers, she'll go mad from it. If she doesn't train, and fight, and scream, she'll lose every last piece of herself.

"But why Beacon Hills?" Stiles asks. "You were going to UCLA, you had an internship at Hale Industries -,"

"I had to skip town," Lydia says flatly, "because Peter Hale tried to kill me. Actually, he's still in the process of trying. He wasn't too pleased when I objected to being used as a crash dummy for his miracle drug."

"That guy from the apartment fire," Stiles blurts, realization dawning on his face. "He -,"

"- is the same one you nearly ran over with your jeep," Lydia finishes. "Congratulations. You saved my ass twice."

"Peter Hale is sending _assassins_ after you?" Stiles says, his voice rising a full octave. "Call the cops! I can have my dad on the phone in ten seconds, I swear -,"

"Who would believe me, Stiles?" Lydia snaps. "The word of two teenagers - one of whom is a _masked vigilante _- is pretty useless against Peter Hale. He's too rich to pay for his crimes."

That idea gives Stiles pause. Lydia can see him coming to grips with the situation. Strangely, it's a freeing sight. She's never told anyone this story before - not even her own family - and it's nice to be believed. Still, she has to add, "Stiles, you can't tell anyone about this. Especially not your father. I very much enjoy being alive, even if I am working a job in retail and living in an apartment the size of a broom closet. Pulling the cops into this is only going to make Peter angry."

After a moment, Stiles sighs. "Fine," he says. "I won't tell anyone."

She can see the reluctance in his big brown eyes, but there's also sincerity. Despite herself, Lydia trusts him. "Thank you," she says. Briskly, she continues, "Now, please open up the kitchen drawer by the fridge and get out the take-out menu on top."

Looking perplexed, Stiles stands up and limps over to the aforementioned drawer. "El Lobo?" he says. "The famous Banshee eats from El Lobo?"

"Rarely," Lydia says, moving into a more comfortable position on the couch. After nearly dying, she deserves comfort food. "Order delivery. I want the nacho special, with no chicken."

"No chicken," Stiles mutters, as if it's a terrible sin.

Stiles orders the food and waits with her until it comes - it's only until the bag arrives with one extra plastic to-go box in it that Lydia realizes he's ordered something, too. "I hope that's okay," Stiles says, clutching his box of food and standing awkwardly between the kitchen area and the everywhere-else. "But I really love their quesadillas."

"It's okay," she decides after a moment, and he sits in her desk chair and eats while she stays on the couch.

One thing Stiles seems to have a knack for is filling silences. He goes on and on about the lacrosse team at Beacon Hills High School, and his best friend Scott, and his best friend Scott's ex-girlfriend Allison, who's still really close with Scott. Then there's his best friend Scott's current girlfriend, Kira, and Stiles's ex-girlfriend/friend Malia, and Scott's friend Isaac, who has a thing going on with Allison. It feels like eons since Lydia's been privy to any interpersonal drama, but she's a former queen bee, and she keeps up easily.

"You should meet Allison sometime," Stiles says, wiping his mouth on a napkin. He's gotten through eighty percent of a large quesadilla in the time it's taken Lydia to eat a third of her nachos. "I think you'd like her."

"You barely know me," Lydia points out, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, yeah," Stiles hedges. "But I dunno - aren't you lonely, living like this?"

She is, but she's not about to admit it. "I'll take the idea into consideration," she says dryly.

Stiles grins at her, and the look is a little bit warmer, a little bit softer, than it had been before. Lydia does not allow herself to react to that thought. "Just trying to help you out," he says, before inhaling the rest of his quesadilla at a speed that is awe-inspiring, if a little gross.

After that Stiles says his goodbyes - "It's a school night, and not all of us are total geniuses," he explains - and heads for the door.

Before he leaves, however, he turns around abruptly - well, as abruptly as someone with a fresh stab wound can turn around - and looks at her. "You know," he says, with a comically transparent devil-may-care attitude, "this probably counted as a date."

Lydia raises her eyebrows at him. "It _wasn't_ a date."

"Well, did it count as my interview for the position of sidekick?"

"_No_." Of course he'd take that figure of speech and run with it.

Stiles grins. "Guess I'll have to submit my application some other way, then." He's gone before she can reply, the smug bastard.

Over the next few days, Stiles doesn't do anything silly, like turn up at her apartment again or get himself killed by being an amateur vigilante - at least, not to her fairly extensive knowledge. He does text her semi-frequently however (mostly random stuff and questions about her "supernatural abilities"), having earned the privilege of having her phone number when Lydia had finally acknowledged that having someone with a car on speed dial would be useful. The Banshee continues her reign of anonymous protection, having been dubbed a "guardian angel" by the _Beacon Hills Bulletin_, and there are no more assassins.

Lydia feels so foolish for thinking that maybe something good might last.

She knows something's wrong when she comes home from work and the front door to her apartment is unlocked. She never, _ever_ leaves that door unlocked - especially when she's not there.

Lydia proceeds with caution, holding the strap of her purse tightly in case she needs to use the bag as a weapon. Everything looks untouched, although that doesn't mean that someone isn't lurking in another room, waiting for her to turn her back.

She walks further into her home, heels clicking softly on the wood floor, and that's when she sees something out of place.

There's a set of car keys resting on top of a pile of scrap paper on her desk. Relief starts to kick in - it's just Stiles, silly, reckless Stiles, who has apparently turned part-time burglar. But that's when Lydia notices the blood smears on Stiles's engraved key chain. The words _May the Force Be With You_ are slick with fresh blood.

Lydia swallows hard. "Stiles?" she calls. Maybe he's still in the apartment - maybe he got a nosebleed, or something equally mundane, and for whatever reason he came here -

Her laptop is sitting exactly where she'd left it that morning - on the couch, plugged up to the charger - but there is a very unfamiliar USB drive sitting on top of it. The words _Hello, Lydia _are written in blue ink on the side of the drive. Lydia knows that handwriting.

Mechanically, almost like she's having a vision, Lydia walks over to the laptop and opens it. As soon as she's past the password barrier on her laptop, she plugs in the drive. A moment later, a video window pops up on the screen, and then Peter Hale's face appears.

"I'm sure you're thrilled to see me, Lydia," he says, with a smile that could butter bread. Lydia fights back nausea. "I would say I'm sorry it had to come to this, but I'm really not. You forced my hand, after all."

Peter doesn't make a signal or give any directions, but someone flicks on a light switch and his surroundings are illuminated. A moment later, a man in a black suit - _how cheesy_, Lydia might have said, under different circumstances - wheels something into the camera's line of sight. It's unmistakably Stiles - he's unconscious, tied to a rolling desk chair, and spattered lightly with blood, but Lydia can see his chest rising and falling slowly and heaves a sigh of relief.

"As you can see, I've got your boyfriend," Peter says, as casually as one might relay the day's weather forecast. "He put up a remarkable fight, but I'm afraid he's not as talented an escape artist as you are."

Lydia feels a sudden rush of hatred, mingled with her omnipresent sense of Peter-related revulsion and nausea. "You're a bright girl, Miss Martin," Peter continues, smirking in a way that makes Lydia want to karate chop her computer. "You know the drill. You sacrifice yourself for him, he walks away, you don't. Oldest story in the book."

Behind him, Stiles rouses slightly, but a moment later, he's dragged back out of view. "I would give you an address, but I'm sure you already know where to go," Peter says. "See you soon, Lydia."

The video ends, and before Lydia can move to hit the replay button, it wipes itself from the USB drive. A clever move on Peter's part, but then again, Lydia wouldn't have expected anything else.

Peter's right about one thing, Lydia decides as she retrieves her suit and weapons. She already knows where he's taken Stiles. It's the place only Peter could be cruel enough to force her to go back to - the laboratory at Hale Industries where he'd jammed a syringe in her neck and _changed_ her, turned her into something she'd never known she could be. He'll regret that decision, she thinks as she zips up her boots with an eerie calm. Because Lydia doesn't intend to sacrifice herself for Stiles - she intends to save him.

Time is of the essence, for obvious reasons. Lydia hasn't had a vision yet, so she's optimistic, but just because she hasn't predicted someone's death doesn't mean something can't go horribly awry. She can only hope that if something _does _go awry, it's Peter who pays the price.

She takes Stiles's jeep, which has been illegally parked down the street from her apartment building. Hale Industries is about an hour away from Beacon Hills, but the ride feels much longer. Every minute is one that an innocent is being held captive for her sake. And the fact that it's _Stiles_ - who, despite his many idiosyncrasies, is the only friend Lydia has - makes it even worse. Lydia isn't naive enough to believe that Peter won't follow through on his unspoken threat to kill Stiles - after all, it's highly probable he'd ordered his men to commit arson just to lure her into a trap, so the odds of him caring whether Stiles lives or dies are very low.

She parks a short way up the road from the skyscraper that is Hale Industries's headquarters, and walks the rest of the way to the main building. It's unlikely she'll make it all the way up to R&D without being noticed by Peter or his goons, but just waltzing right in feels too suicidal for Lydia's tastes.

The place is deserted, thanks to the fact that it's after business hours, but there aren't even any security guards patrolling the area or manning the front desk. Lydia is mildly unsettled by that observation; it means Peter is so confident in his ability to defeat her that he's left his front door wide open for her.

She takes the elevator up thirty floors, because climbing the stairs will waste time and it's not like they don't already know she's there. "I can do this," she mutters, trying to convince herself of it even though she's nauseous at the very thought of setting foot onto the thirtieth floor again. Nevertheless, when the doors slide open with a mild _ding_, Lydia sucks in a deep gulp of air and steps out into the laboratory.

Peter's men in their black suits are the only dark spots in the huge, brightly lit room full of white and stainless steel. Peter is nowhere to be found, but Lydia can see Stiles. He's still strapped to a rolling desk chair, but now sports a piece of duct tape over his mouth. No doubt he's been haranguing his captors ever since regaining consciousness.

"Hey!" one of the men cries out as soon as he spots her. "She's here -,"

Lydia sends him to his knees, screaming, with one swift toss of a throwing knife. It's not a mortal wound, but perhaps he'll reconsider joining the fight that's about to ensue.

A split second later, gunfire rings out; Lydia dives behind the nearest lab table, her hand flying to her belt. She pulls out a small smoke bomb - another useful creation of hers - and pelts it over the table. It lands next to the nearest two guards and begins to spew vapor, giving Lydia enough cover to run to Stiles. She has just enough time before the smoke clears to pull out another small knife, sever the ties pinning one of his wrists to the chair's armrests, and hand him the dagger so that he can cut the rest of his bonds.

She doesn't have time to order Stiles to run before the guards are firing at her again, their bullets missing her by inches and shattering panes of glass in the wall of windows behind her. Lydia barely avoids being shot in the head and accidentally drops a Banshee Bomb as she ducks behind another table. She then evades an assailant as he tries to grab her by forcibly twisting his wrist until it snaps. She knees him in the groin and he makes her work easier by falling into the path of another attacker, causing him to trip and fire his gun uselessly at the floor. Lydia kicks him in the head just hard enough to knock him unconscious, and is aiming another dagger when a voice calls out smoothly, "Stop."

The three remaining guards go still simultaneously, but Lydia whirls around, knife still held aloft. Her heart skips a beat in her chest, because Peter - the star of every nightmare she's had in the past year - is standing at the edge of the room, framed by the night sky outside the windows. He's holding a gleaming silver blade to Stiles's throat.

"I'm sorry, I just had to see the show first," Peter says, with a wolfish grin. "It's one thing to hear tales about the Banshee, but to see her in action? I must say I'm impressed. You aren't the same girl who walked into my building a year ago, Lydia. Not even close. She could have never have done the things that you've achieved."

_Because you changed me_, Lydia wants to spit. _You made me think I was losing my mind and then when I finally put something of myself together again, you keep trying to kill me._

She doesn't say it, because admitting defeat to Peter's face is not something she can bear.

"Put the knife down, Lydia," Peter says, with an icy edge rising in his tone, "or I'll slit his throat." Stiles doesn't visibly react to these words, although his face is quite pale and there's tension written on every inch of his body.

After a second's hesitation, Lydia lets the dagger fall to the floor, lowering her arms to her sides and clenching her fists tightly. "Let him go," she says, sharply enough to hide the quiver in her voice. "He's not a part of this."

"Oh, but he is," Peter says. "You brought him into this, Lydia, not me. But don't worry, I'm a man of my word. He'll leave unharmed if you stay."

"No," Stiles blurts, like the foolishly brave idiot that he is. "Lydia, you -,"

"Quiet," Peter says, pressing the knife to Stiles's skin just hard enough that Stiles gasps and a thin red line of blood appears.

"Let him go," Lydia says tightly. "Peter -,"

"Lydia, he's going to kill you!" Stiles shouts. "I heard him say it -,"

"Oh, will you shut up?" Peter says, looking rather exasperated. "As if she doesn't already _know_ that. She won't cooperate with me and she knows too much - _of course_ I'm going to kill her."

"Let him go!" Lydia says again, her voice rising to a shout. Several things happen at once then. One of Peter's henchmen lunges at Lydia from behind, and Stiles jerks forward in Peter's grip just enough to stomp on something - the Banshee Bomb that Lydia had dropped only moments before.

Lydia is knocked down, but as she hits the floor she still registers what's happening - Peter and Stiles are struggling, mouths open as their cries of pain are completely drowned out by the terrible sound of Lydia's own recorded screams - and then, in one simultaneous move, they crash into one of the fractured panes of glass behind them. There's a split second where Lydia's elbow collides with her attacker's nose and she sees Stiles's brown eyes go wide and round, and then both he and Peter fall backwards out of view.

"No!" she shrieks, but by the time she's freed herself, it's far too late.

She bolts to the windows, and surprisingly, no one attempts to stop her - perhaps now that their boss isn't watching, the guards are less inclined to tangle with her. Lydia looks down, and then she remembers - _oh, God, the observation deck_.

It's only three floors below, and from where she stands, Lydia can see Stiles slowly crawling off of Peter, whom he'd landed on top of. To her surprise, Peter appears to be conscious, albeit very dazed. Lydia doesn't even hesitate - she takes a deep breath and jumps, landing on her feet on the observation deck with a thud that radiates up through her bones. She runs to Stiles and drops to her knees, and without even thinking she's pulling him in for a hug.

With his face buried in her hair, he sucks in a sharp breath. "Lydia," he says, pained. "My shoulder - I think it's broken -,"

Lydia releases him immediately. "Is it just your shoulder?" she asks, breathless. "Nowhere else?"

He shakes his head, and she is so relieved that she could kiss him. She doesn't, obviously, but the thought lingers in her mind for just a second too long.

"Well, this is charming," Peter says from behind them, having quickly regained his ability to annoy the hell out of Lydia. "But really, Lydia, did you think you were the only one who could survive a little fall?"

Lydia's on her feet in an instant, spinning around to face him. He's standing, smirking, and that's when realization hits Lydia like a freight train. There's no way a normal man would just hop up from a fall like that - not after landing flat on his back and being used to cushion Stiles's landing. It's impossible.

"You used the serum on yourself," Lydia says, staring at him. "You used me as a lab rat to see if it would work safely, and then you took it."

"Brilliant as usual, Lydia," Peter says, right before he lunges for her throat.

Lydia manages to dodge him, darting away on quick feet, taking the fight away from where Stiles crouches on the ground, holding his injured arm to his chest. Peter follows, and the next time he goes for her, Lydia isn't quick enough to get away. He punches her hard in the stomach, and Lydia can do nothing but wheeze and double over. Peter's hand goes for her throat next, but Stiles, who has clambered shakily to his feet, lets out a yell of pain and anger and barrels into Peter's side, knocking him away from Lydia.

Peter swats Stiles away like a fly, and Stiles hits the ground hard and doesn't get up again. Peter, his normally pristine appearance quite mussed and his face alight with a mad rage, bends over Stiles to finish the job. Lydia, still gasping for air as pain radiates through her body, has the presence of mind to reach for her belt, where her very last dagger is sheathed. The drug has enhanced her vision, hand-eye coordination, and speed, but at this point, she's relying mostly on hope and luck when she lefts the knife fly.

The knife hits Peter in the lower back, and he falls to his knees with a groan of pain. His agony gives Lydia enough time to give him a sharp blow to the skull, efficiently knocking him unconscious. Peter nearly falls on top of Stiles, who is conscious but clearly in pain. "Is he dead?" Stiles asks, through gritted teeth.

"No," Lydia says calmly, fetching handcuffs from her utility belt. "He doesn't deserve a get out of jail free card." Still, she decides, if unforeseen circumstances prevent help from arriving and Peter bleeds out, Lydia won't feel much remorse at all. Once Peter is handcuffed, Lydia helps Stiles to his feet and says, "We've got to get out of here. Now."

Getting Stiles - who is swaying on his feet and looking rather ashen - down twenty-seven flights of stairs is a virtual impossibility, unless Lydia plans to drag him the whole way, so she decides to chance the elevator. By some stroke of luck, none of Peter's men show up to meet them when they reach the lobby; Lydia supposes they must have either left their employer for dead or gathered somewhere to regroup. Either way, Lydia plans to be long gone before she and Stiles can run into anyone else.

On their way out, Lydia uses one of the phones at the front desk to call 911. "Hale Industries," she tells the emergency dispatcher without preamble. "Send police and an ambulance. Check the observation deck on the twenty-seventh floor first."

With that, she hangs up and ushers Stiles from the building. By the time they make it back to the jeep, he's sweating and deathly pale. "I'm taking you to the emergency room," Lydia informs him, as she helps him ease his way into the passenger seat.

Stiles gives her a panicked look. "They'll call my dad - and Scott's mom works there. If she's on duty, she'll flip -,"

"Stiles," Lydia says, exasperated. "You can't explain away being gone for hours and coming home with a broken shoulder."

Stiles looks like he's going to argue with her, but she closes the door in his face and goes around to the driver's side. He seems to give up, because the ride to the hospital in Beacon Hills is a very quiet one. When she looks over at him, his jaw is set tightly, pain written all over his face.

Lydia acts without thinking - something which she's been doing with alarming frequency lately - and reaches out with one hand to gently touch Stiles's uninjured arm. "You're going to be okay," she says. "Your dad's going to be too happy you're alive to be angry. He's probably worried sick."

"You're probably right," Stiles says, his gaze flicking to where her hand rests on his forearm. Lydia pulls her hand away and ignores the sensation of heat rising in her cheeks. Now is _so_ not the time.

Once they reach Beacon Hills Memorial, Lydia changes into clothes she finds in Stiles's backseat (a Beacon Hills Lacrosse hoodie and too-big sweatpants - _ugh_) and escorts him inside. Stiles comes up with some lie about falling down a flight of stairs and Lydia waits with him while x-rays are taken of his arm and shoulder.

In a moment of downtime while the ER doctor is out of the room, Lydia asks, "Do you think they've called your dad yet?"

"Probably," Stiles says, from his position sitting on an exam table. "Guess you should get going, huh?"

"Yeah," Lydia admits, rising to her feet. "Have you decided what you're going to tell him?"

"The truth," Stiles says. When Lydia gapes at him, he clarifies hastily, "Not the whole truth and nothin' but the truth, obviously. I'll just tell him I was used as a civilian hostage by Peter Hale. He'll probably already know about what's happened at Hale Industries, so I just gotta make him believe me."

An idea occurs to Lydia, and she reaches into the front pocket of her borrowed outerwear for her mask. "Show him this," she says. "Tell him it's a token from me. He'll recognize it."

Stiles gawks at her for a moment, then takes the mask and puts it in his pocket. "You sure?"

"Yeah," Lydia says flippantly. "I need a new one anyway. That one itches."

"It's too plain for you," Stiles says, with a half-smile. "You need something with a little ... pizazz." Lydia strongly suspects that if both of his arms had been functional, he'd have thrown in some jazz hands.

She sighs. "Duly noted."

"Have you given any more thought about that sidekick position?" Stiles asks, feigning seriousness. "I'm still interested."

Lydia studies him for a moment. To her surprise, she's not as averse to the idea as she'd been only days ago. Stiles has proven himself useful and resourceful many times tonight, after all. It doesn't hurt that Lydia's starting to get used to spending time with him, although she has yet to analyze her feelings on _that_ particular matter. "I'll consider it," she says finally.

Stiles brightens like a child on Christmas morning. "You're serious?" he blurts, giving her an awed look. "Holy shit, you are incredible."

"Don't push it," Lydia says. "Alright, I'm leaving."

She's turning away when Stiles reaches for her with his good arm, saying, "Lydia, wait." He catches her loosely by the wrist and pulls her back towards him gently. Stiles goes in for a one-armed hug, but something in Lydia says _oh, fuck it _and she tilts her head just enough that their lips brush. Stiles's breath catches, but he doesn't pull away from her.

"Whoa," he says, his voice going unusually soft. Lydia would only admit this under threat of injury or death, but the sound creates a warm, light feeling in her chest. "Did you do that or did I do that?"

Lydia raises an eyebrow at him. "Are you sure you didn't hit your head when you fell?" she asks, stepping away from the table.

"Lydia," he says plaintively.

"I already told you," she says, throwing a smirk over her shoulder as she walks away. "I'll consider it." The look on his face is equal parts exasperation and schoolboy with a crush, and it's something Lydia could get used to looking at.

Predictably, Stiles calls her the next morning while she's getting ready for hell - that is, for work at the department store. "Shouldn't you be in school?" she asks, without preamble.

"Saying that makes you sound like a cougar," Stiles says. "You're not even older than me - you're just freakishly smart."

"True," Lydia says mildly. "But really, why aren't you in class?"

"My dad let me skip today," Stiles says. "He had mercy on me, thankfully."

Lydia hadn't expected any different; no parent would seriously punish their child for being _kidnapped_, after all. She's pretty sure the fact that the sheriff owes her his life helps, too. "So how's the arm?"

"Hurts like hell," Stiles admits, "but the pain meds are pretty awesome."

Lydia smiles, and then says, "So, I've reached my decision."

"And?" Stiles prompts, in what he must think is a casual manner.

"You're allowed to be my second-in-command on a trial basis," Lydia says. "After about thirty days or so, I'll decide whether it's a full-time thing."

Stiles laughs, and the sound is the most warm and genuine thing Lydia's heard in a long, long time. "Does this mean I get to introduce you to my friends as my boss?" he asks.

"Of course," Lydia says. Sobering, she continues, "It also means that as soon as your arm heals up, I'm going to start training you. Dumb luck and enthusiasm can only get you so far, Stiles."

"Well, it's gotten me this far in life, so I'm pretty confident with it," Stiles says, and Lydia rolls her eyes in exasperation (although the gesture has taken on a slightly more affectionate context as of late.)

"I'm serious, Stiles."

"I know," he says. "So do you think I can get a cool name? The press usually comes up with those, right? But what if I get a crappy one?"

"Oh, I don't know," Lydia says. She thinks of today's paper, and how all the headlines had been praising her for saving another citizen, and smiles. "You have to make the best of it."


End file.
